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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24481552">Little Things</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/killerkittens22/pseuds/killerkittens22'>killerkittens22</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Breaking Programming, Character Study, Clones, Original Character(s), Other, Sci-Fi, individuality</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:27:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,033</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24481552</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/killerkittens22/pseuds/killerkittens22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There are stories about clones. Of course there are, it's an easy resource, an army entirely at your command. It's a source of expendable troops (After all, clones aren't really alive). Except, clone stories always end in failure (Because clones really are alive). There is always the inevitable, a defect, a fault in the code. Individuality.</p><p> </p><p>What if there wasn't?</p><p> </p><p>A perfect system. Defects detected, sorted, destroyed. Could individuality arise anyway? (Are clones really alive? Or is it only mistakes, who can claim the humanity that, by all rights, should be theirs at birth.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anna/Individuality</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Little Things</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There are stories about clones. Of course there are, it's an easy resource, an army entirely at your command. It's a source of expendable troops (After all, clones aren't <em>really</em> alive). Except, clone stories always end in failure (Because clones <em>really are alive</em>). There is always the inevitable, a defect, a fault in the code. <em>I</em><em>ndividuality. </em></p><p>What if there wasn't?</p><p>A perfect system. Defects detected, sorted, destroyed. Could individuality arise anyway? (Are clones <em>really alive</em>? Or is it only mistakes, who can claim the humanity that, by all rights, should be theirs at birth.)</p><hr/><p>Alpha-Nova-Mercury-Alpha is it's designation. For now. It will join a new group eventually, and it's designation will be changed to reflect it's place in line. They are clones, interchangeable, indistinguishable, aside from their designated location in the ranks. They do not get silly things like <em>names</em>. Nothing different about them is set in stone. There is nothing solid upon which to make an identity; just identical faces and lives and an ever changing unimportant designation.</p><p>Alpha-Nova-Mercury-Alpha, ANMA, is in training. It is learning to use a forge. It has already completed conditioning, video training, and several skill courses. After this, it will go on to physical training, followed by Military Education. A thousand clones will go through this forge today, their memories will be virtually identical. Clones are not allowed to have <em> pasts</em>. There are no memories to distinguish them, nothing to call <em>really their own.</em> Their training is a set portion of events. If at any point something outside of the parameters occurs their memory will be wiped and they will repeat the course. If at any point it is determined that a clone is operating outside of standard programming, they will be destroyed.</p><p>ANMA is printing its current designation upon the dagger it is forging. It is using clone language, a series of raised lines that will be passed through a machine later, where it will record the designation, and grade the effort. ANMA is on track to complete the training, there have been no faults outside of parameters. The designation it is printing is slightly clumsy, this is fine. The point of training outside of the already learned video courses is to achieve muscle memory and control. In a few hours ANMA's printing will be standard and regular, able to be read by a machine. However, this is it's first attempt. The lines are shakey, some are too long, some too short, they get thicker and thinner. No clone today will replicate the exact mistakes ANMA has made. It is individual, utterly unique, not even perfect clones can be identical.</p><p>ANMA will mess up it's designation. A N N A instead of A N M A, this is fine. A common mistake by clones who have are unable to see the rest of their group, they mis-number their location. It will be noted by the machine that grades its work, ANMA will be destroyed if the mistake is too frequent. (It won't be, ANMA is not a defectual clone.)</p><p>ANMA will drop the hot metal on it's hand, the only uncovered part of it's uniform, this is fine. It has left a scar, but ANMA has shown the prescribed amount of disgust for the blemish.</p><p>It is a normal clone on a normal day. Except it has a scar, that's important, pay attention.</p><p>Scars are within normal parameters for clones, if the scar is deemed too altering, the clone is destroyed. The computer judges this scar as within parameters, something normal, something every clone has. Except this scar is different, different in a way a computer, who has never known identity, wouldn't understand.</p><p>The scar is an imprint, a perfect rendition of the letters A N N A. A single moment of individuality, shaky lines and a mistaken designation, frozen in time on the back of the hand that it will see every day for the rest of its existence. They are <em>letters, a word, </em>other clones have scars, but they don't mean anything. A line is not much to forge an identity out of, but a <em>word</em>? Every time ANMA looks at it's scar it will read Anna, because it has been trained to read things. That's important, pay attention.</p><p>ANMA will remember how it got that scar. Because it happened in training. Most clones, who are only ever allowed to remember their training and boring identical days, have identical lives. Their minds are wiped of every different experience. They do not remember how they get scars. ANMA has a scar that it will notice every identical day, and every identical day it will have a memory of how it became different (It doesn't understand it is different, not yet.) This is important, pay attention.</p><p>So every day, ANMA will have something different happen to it than other clones, and it will <em>remember</em>. The computer can't erase it, it doesn't notice, who cares if every day a clone reads a word on its skin?</p><p>ANMA will get attached to this habit of its. It will connect this word, Anna, with itself (Not as a name, clones don't get names), It will think ANMA or 1 or Delta-Nine and it will think of a scar and a word ringing in it's brain, <em>Anna</em>. That's important, pay attention.</p><p>It is such a small deviation from the norm that no one notices it. That the clone, thinks of itself as the one with a word on its skin, rather than the one in spot 309 seems.. unimportant. But it is, it's very important, because a clone can't always be the one in spot 309, but a clone will always be the one with a word on it's skin. (It's something solid, one continual difference, something to build an identity out of.) The computer can't expect this, because no one identfies themselves by a scar on their skin.</p><p>This scar is different, a meaning, a memory, a history, a word, a connection. <em>Something of it's own</em>.</p><p>So this clone is Wb-7 or Twenty-three or :2, but when it thinks of itself something always come to mind, reading a word imprinted on it's skin, <em>Anna.</em></p><p>That's important, pay attention.</p>
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